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extra jolt for China's booming cafe culture. On Wednesday, Starbucks opened the doors to its first overseas roastery in Shanghai. The company is hoping the grand flagship store will boost its reputation as a high-end brand, critical now that Chinese coffee drinkers have more options than ever before.

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As Reuter's Adam Georgian reports.>> Maybe five, ten years ago, everyone would've gone to one of the big chains, and they'd gone to Starbucks. Now we're seeing an emergence of a more varied, a more diverse sort of market. There are more offerings that people like, convenient stores offering coffees.

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There are chains that are coming from outside China, smaller chains that are now getting into the market as they see the growth. And all that is sort of changing the complexion, changing the fate of the market, and more of what we're gonna see going forward.>> Starbucks already operates 3,000 outlets across China.

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The US company was a trailblazer, helping this tea drinking nation develop a taste for coffee. And while that success has encouraged many others to follow suit, Starbucks still sees its future in China with a more luxury focus.>> The idea with this roastery push here in China, with this huge coffee emporium, where you've got beans being roasted and ground on site, you've got a bakery.

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The idea is to kind of add a halo to the whole Starbucks brand in the country. Now of course, the idea there is to make sure that they fend off any other rivals trying to get into the kinda premium space where Starbucks really sees its market.>> With competition brewing, Starbucks is doubling down on efforts to pull in customers.

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The company says store numbers in China will hit 10,000 within a decade, overtaking the United States.